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eMOLT Update 2024-03-22
Weekly Recap
Today, a large chunk of the eMOLT team spent time at the Mass
Lobstermen’s Association annual trade show and meeting. We’ll be there
again tomorrow. Our booth is right between NERACOOS and the Center for
Coastal Studies, across from Massachusetts DMF. If you’re around the
show tomorrow, stop by and bring your friends and coworkers! For eMOLT
participants both long-term and new, we also have an ask for you. If
you’d like to see the program grow and empower more fishermen to collect
environmental data, please consider signing a letter of support for our
application to the MassTech Program. Funding from this program would
allow us to outfit an additional 150 vessels in Southern New England and
the Mid-Atlantic and fund the development of a new low-cost CTD for
deployment on fishing gear. These new instruments would allow eMOLT
participants to start collecting salinity data along with temperature
and dissolved oxygen. If you won’t be at the trade show and are still
interested in supporting our application to MassTech, please reach out
to George at george.maynard@noaa.gov
For several years, we have been processing bottom temperature records
from the lobster larvae settlement traps off the coast of Maine. With
Rick Wahle’s retirement, the trap collections are now coordinated by
other folks like Dr. Andrew Goode at the Lobster Institute. A few
different fishermen have been involved each year with Minilog
temperature probes install at three different depths off their region of
the coast. This past year, HOBO temperature probes were also installed
at the surface (see example timeseries figures below). We can see in
Curt Brown’s shallow (8 fth) site, the vertical stratification of
temperature can break down for short periods (evidently due to wind,
moon tide, or river runoff events) during the summer and more
permanently in the fall. As can be seen in the map below for the Casco
Bay case (currently occupied by Curt Brown and crew), the traps are
located in different areas each year. 
Bottom Temperature Forecasts
Northeast Coastal Ocean Forecast System (NECOFS)


Doppio Bottom Temperature Forecast

Announcements and Other News
For Massachusetts fishermen: South Fork Wind (owned by Ørsted)
announced that their eligibility application for direct compensation has
opened for commercial and recreational fishing vessels that have
experienced economic impacts from construction and/or interruptions
during operation from offshore wind vessels operating in the South Fork
Wind Project Area. PKF O’Connor Davis (PKFOD), the third-party
administrator for South Fork Wind, will be reviewing and processing
eligibility and direct compensation claims. For more info, click
here
On-demand lobster and Jonah crab gear testing is underway off
Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Science Center scientists are working
with commercial lobster vessels to test on-demand (ropeless) fishing
gear in state and federal waters normally closed to lobster and Jonah
crab fishing with static vertical lines. Testing in this area will occur
through April 30, 2024.

Because on-demand gear has no surface buoys, it won’t be visible at
the surface. To visualize the gear positions and orientations, mariners
can download and subscribe to the EdgeTech Trap Tracker app ($25) on the
Apple
or Google
Play app stores. For more information on this work, click here.
Mariners: There is a potential gear conflict area immediately west of
the Great South Channel in former Groundfish Closed Area 1. On-demand
gear in that area is set northwest to southeast in trawls approximately
1.5 nautical miles in length. If anyone accidentally tows up the
on-demand gear, don’t discard it. Hold onto the gear and contact our
Gear Research Team. Contact info can be found here.
All the best,
-George and JiM
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